Troegs Brewing Co.: Troegenator Doublebock Beer

Troegs is another Pennsylvania brewery that is widely available around here, so it's about time I gate it a review. Their doppelbock is perhaps one of their better-known brews, so I figured I'd grab a six pack and share.

True to the bock style, this beer has got big dark malt flavors and the hops are, as expected, very muted. The featured taste is some sort of dark fruity thing, but happily, this one isn't as sweet as a lot of doppelbocks. This toned-down sweetness, along with the medium body and mild-though-detectable carbonation, makes this pretty drinkable for a bock.

I'm a novice when it comes to appraising bocks, so unfortunately I can't give as thoroughly-detailed a review as I'd like. But I can say that I like this brew quite a bit. The dark malty flavors are very well put together and have a tasty sweetness to them. But the sweetness doesn't linger a moment too long, giving way to a very mild hops and carbonation aftertaste. This is definitely one to add to your catalogue of winter brews. Cheers!

Stoudts Brewing Co.: Double IPA

The double IPA is a dangerous beast. IPAs are already quite bold tasting. Try to double down on anything and you risk pushing the beer over the edge. A lot of double IPAs are just unadulterated hop monsters. Stoudt's take is a little different.

This unimaginatively titled brew does not seem to have any more hops

than a "regular" IPA. Instead, presumably in an effort to increase the ABV, Stoudts has put a lot more malt into this beer. The taste has an almost honey-like sweetness to it at first, and while you'd expect the hops to come in and wipe that out, the sweetness turns out to be quite persistent. Still, the flavors are overall pretty well balanced--the sweetness, while persistent, is not overdone and there are plenty of hops to give your tastebuds something else to focus on. It's sort of like a scaled-back version of Dogfish Head's 180 minute IPA.

This beer is a little bit too sugary for my tastes. It's not a "sweet" beer by any means, but I would definitely have preferred a little bit drier flavor. Definitely an interesting take on the genre, and probably a boon for those that really dig malted-up IPAs.

Weyerbacher Brewing Co.: Slam Dunkel

Bocks don't normally crack my my favorites list. (I have a hard time believing Rogue Dead Guy really is a Maibock.) But last week I had a pretty stellar bock, and I gotta share it.

Slam Dunkel is one of the very smoothest beers I can remember having. It's got a very well rounded malty flavor, accented by some spiciness that is reminiscent of a witbier. On top of that, it has a distinctive banana flavor and possibly a touch of raisins too. It is pretty flat so far as carbonation goes and is not all that hoppy either, so it doesn't have much of a punch to it. You might think from this description that it would be too sweet, but there is just enough of an earthy hoppiness that gets through to temper the malts. Mouthfeel is medium--not thick like some bocks--which helps.

Roasted malts. Spiciness. Bananas. Odd combo, but a great result. Good job again, Weyerbacher.

Weyerbacher Brewing Co.: Heresy

I have to get in at least one more stout before the season's over. Soon the warm weather will be here and I'll be on a steady diet of Coppers, Pales, Wits, and Czech Pilsners. So it's time for one last hurrah, and we might as go out with a bang. Here's another Pennsylvania brewery for you: Weyerbacher. They call their imperial stout "Heresy," which seems like a fitting name for any imperial stout you'd consume on Easter weekend.

Imperial stouts are without a doubt the biggest and baddest of beers. In terms of raw flavor power, they are unmatched (except perhaps by Ruination-esque IPAs). And Heresy does not disappoint on this front. Right away you get blasted by an overload of roasted malts and a slight alcohol kick to boot. As the alcohol and malts begin to fade, a collection of other flavors begin to emerge: There's some dark fruit (cherries and blackberries I think), a little bit of vanilla, some black licorice, as well as some mild hoppiness that lingers on after the rest of the flavors have subsided. The mouthfeel is pretty thick, though not as thick as some of the truly devastating Russian stouts (Stone and Lagunitas come to mind).

I'm a big fan of imperial stouts, and Heresy certainly didn't disappoint. It's a little bit sweeter than I would have preferred, though the benefit of the mild hoppiness is that you can really start to pick up on all the other flavors that are hiding in the pitch blackness of this brew (no joke--this beer is an alcoholic black hole). A solid offering--better than most, though not quite up to competing with the likes of Stone and Bell's.

Yuengling: Porter

As I mentioned a while back in my post on Yuengling's lager, Yuengling is a major east coast brewery and is the iconic beer of the Philadelphia region. Kim, one of my friends here at Penn, had the brilliant idea to take a trip to the Yuengling brewery in Pottsville. Having nothing better to do on Friday, four of us headed up to see America's oldest brewery. Besides the usual explanation of the brewing process and tour of the facilities (including their awesome bottling-and-canning facility), we got the chance to sample some of Yuengling's other brews. I was particularly impressed with their porter.

Yuengling is not a brewery interested in bold experimentation with complex or novel flavors. They go for getting the perfect take on traditional genres. Subtlety isn't their usual game, but I found that their porter is actually a pretty complex beer. It's got the typical dark roasty malts that are suggestive of coffee and chocolate, but there's some other flavors hiding in the background like cherries (props to Jon for figuring out that one). For a porter, this one's pretty well carbonated and has a lighter mouthfeel, making it unusually drinkable for a dark beer.

Good job on this one, Yuengling. Glad to see that Philly's flagship has a bit of versatility.

Victory Brewing Co.: Donnybrook Stout

It's started to warm up finally, but it's still plenty cold out for a stout. I went with another offering from Victory, since their Storm King didn't disappoint. This one is totally different, but equally respectable.

Donnybrook is a stout made in the image of Guinness Draught. It's got a super-smooth mouthfeel, is only mildly bitter, and has a very dry taste. It's a tad bit maltier than it's Irish counterpart, and as a result it comes across a little bit sweeter. But it's definitely closer in spirit to Irish stouts than to your big, bold, malty American varieties.

Maybe my tastebuds are not properly attuned to appreciate Irish stouts, but I did find that this brew a little bit boring in the end. It's very well balanced however, and is perhaps the first stout I've had that could really qualify as a session beer. So take it for what it is: a no-frills, back-to-basics, and eminently drinkable beer.

Victory Brewing Co.: Storm King Imperial Stout

Now that I'm finally reunited with my computer, it's time to get posting again. As we're still in the depths of winter, it's still prime time for stouts and porters. So I decided to go local with another Pennsylvanian brewery.

Victory's Storm King is a quality stout. It's a definite flavor overload: the roasted malts and pronounced hops fight a veritable death match on your palette. On the malt side the prime contenders are hints of coffee and chocolate. The hops are primarily earthy, but you can taste a little bit of citrus coming through too. It's got a medium-thick mouthfeel, but for a stout it's pretty well carbonated. This tends to accentuate the bitter aspects of the flavor. Finally, there is a slight alcohol taste, which is to be expected, given the imperial label.

I'm a little bit of a snob when it comes to stouts, so I can't really pretend that this is a truly top shelf stout. But it is certainly one of the better stouts I've come across. So if you're in Pennsylvania, give it a try.

Sly Fox Brewing Co: Odyssey Imperial IPA

I made my trek to Tria, the local beer and wine bar, tonight to sample their weekly featured brew. What they had on tap was a local imperial IPA. It being a cold winter night (snow is on the ground), a strong beer was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Odyssey is one of the IPAs that feature a distinctive "piney" taste to them. This taste compliments the extreme hoppiness of an IPA quite nicely. What sets Odyssey apart is that--unlike many IPAs--it doesn't write off the malt flavors entirely. There's an almost sugary malt sweetness that comes through in this beer, and while sugar isn't generally a flavor you'd like to see in a beer, in this case it works out quite nicely. There is also a faint citrusy taste at play in here somewhere, and as you'd expect, the taste of alcohol is also present (though not too strongly).

It seems that in most cases, IPA brewers ignore the malt aspects of their beer entirely to focus on pleasing their hophead constituency. But for those of us that are not extreme hopheads, having a secondary flavor to balance out the hops works out great. But IPA devotees shouldn't worry about this--this is an Imperial IPA through and through, with plenty of hops to go around. In sum, if you are into the India Pale Ale genre, this is definitely a brew worth seeking out.

Yards Brewing Co.: Brawler

And exactly one week behind schedule, here is your fifth beer from a new brewery.

Yards is about as local as I can get. They are the first brewery I've reviewed that are actually located within the city limits of Philadelphia. As such, their brews are easy to find locally, but I'm not sure that they have much of a reputation outside the region.

I grabbed their Brawler, a "pugilist style ale" purely out of curiosity. As the label reveals, the name and invented genre of this beer signify that you can "go a few rounds" with it--i.e., it has a low-ish ABV (4.2%). But as anyone with a little international drinking experience knows, beers under 5% are not all that uncommon outside the United States.

In fact, Brawler is very closely akin to a true English bitter. It's very dry and mild. The malts and the hops are very well balanced. The principal difference from a true bitter is that it is more carbonated than anything you'd find on the other side of the pond. However, the increased carbonation appears to work well. While this brew isn't particularly exciting or unique, it is very well put together and enjoyable to drink. And that's what counts for high marks, in my book at least.

Stoudts Fat Dog: Imperial Oatmeal Stout

Only a couple hours left in the week, so I better make good on my promise to review a new beer from a new brewery every week for the last five weeks of class. Week 3: Stoudts Fat Dog Oatmeal Stout. Stoudts is a Pennsylvania brewery, and a well-known one at that, so I've been a bit remiss ignoring them up to this point. I figured I'd give them a fair shake on their first review by choosing a variety of beer that I generally enjoy.

This ale is quite unique. Lots of different flavors going on. It's got a peculiar sweetness to it that is a bit like cola or licorice, though there's also some smoky coffee notes and a dry finish that hints of a red wine. Mouthfeel is about par for the course so far as stouts go--it's fairly thick but not milk-stout thick. It finishes with a dry hoppiness that manages to take the edge off the sweetness, though in the end it's still a little sweeter than I'd like.

Nevertheless I have to give credit to Stoudts for packing so many different flavors into a single brew and making them all work together pretty well. For an imperial, this one goes down pretty smooth too--there's just a hint of the alcohol in the aftertaste. All in all, a respectable stout, but certainly not on the order of Barney Flats or Bell's Double Cream.

Yuengling: Lager

Having lived in Philadelphia for a year and a half now, it's about time I blogged Philadelphia's signature beer (though it's actually brewed in Pottsville, which is a little ways away). May I present Yeungling Lager.

Before there was Bud, before there was Coors, hell, before there was most of the Untied States, there was Yuengling. The Yuengling brewery was opened in 1829 and has been in continuous operation ever since. It survived during prohibition by brewing "near beer," which has an ABV under 1%. The day Prohibition was officially repealed, a truckload of the original full-strength stuff arrived at FDR's White House, a somewhat dubious feat since Yeungling takes at least three weeks to brew and age.

Those of us that came of age in most of the U.S., and certainly on the West Coast, are used to dividing domestic breweries into two categories: more exepensive craft brews and cheap megabrewed American-style lagers (the official name for the watery stuff that Coors, Anheuser-Busch, and Miller brew). But Yuengling defies these categories. Yuengling is cheap, retailing at the same price as megabrews, but it is a legitimate amber lager. It's not all that different from Sam Adams, but has a little bit lighter mouthfeel, which lends it a little bit more drinkability.

Yuengling's chief virtue is its versatility. It's served both at dive bars and fine restaurants. It shows up at college-style house parties, and white-tablecloth receptions. It's an acceptable beer to sip politely, guzzle shamelessly, and everything in between. It's definitely the "Philadelphia" to Boston's Sam Adams: It's cheaper, less well-known, and not as flashy. But I've grown to develop a real appreciation for the stuff.

So keep a lookout for Yuengling next time you're out to try something new. I guarantee you it won't set you back much, and you just might find you've found your new favorite standby.